The Journal
Everything we have written, in one place.
45 articles across six departments. Figures are linked to the official pages they come from; where a number could not be sourced, we have left it out.
By Thomas Lovas Lokoy, Co-founder & Editor · Updated 28 September 2026
Buying
Branded Residences Explained: Contracts, Costs, Rental Programmes and Resale
A branded residence attaches a hotel or fashion-house name, service and management to a private home. How the contracts work, what the charges buy, how rental programmes pay, and what limits your resale.
10 min read · Updated 30 September 2026
Markets
Market dossiers: who may buy, what it costs, how it works
Buying a Private Island: Tenure, Consents and the Real Running Costs
What you actually acquire when you buy an island, which consents sit outside the land title, and why the running costs and the resale market matter more than the asking price.
Monaco Penthouses: What They Cost and How Buying Works
Monaco's own statistics institute puts the average price at about €57,600 per square metre in 2025. What drives the top of the market, what a buyer pays in registration duty, and how residency actually works.
Can Foreigners Own Property in Dubai? Full Guide for 2026
Yes, in designated freehold areas — and three of the numbers that decide the purchase are publicly checkable. The registration fee, the golden visa term that is widely misreported, and the register that publishes your service charge.
Malibu Oceanfront Estates: Permits, Fire Risk and Insurance
Malibu's coastline is finite and tightly regulated. How coastal permits, recorded access easements, wildfire history and the insurance market shape what an oceanfront estate is really worth.
Why Ultra-Prime Real Estate Can Be Riskier in Downturns
Knight Frank tracks 100 prime markets and 24 of them fell in 2025. Why fastest-appreciating city rankings are thinner than they look, and why the real risk at the top of the market is the size of the buyer pool.
New York Penthouses: Billionaires' Row, Condos, Co-ops and Costs
How the Manhattan penthouse market works, from the supertall towers of Billionaires' Row to Park Avenue co-ops: the ownership types, the transfer taxes, the carrying costs and the extra layer for foreign buyers.
Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Belgravia: How Prime London Property Works
The three neighbourhoods at the centre of London's prime market, and what decides value there: stamp duty for individuals, companies and non-residents, leasehold terms, and listing and conservation rules.
Buying Prime Property in Singapore: ABSD, Landed Homes and Leases
What a foreign buyer can and cannot buy in Singapore, what stamp duty costs by buyer profile, how the Global Investor Programme fits in, and why most homes are leasehold.
Private Ski Chalets in Courchevel, Aspen and Zermatt: A Buyer's Guide
Three of the best-known ski resorts, three very different rulebooks. What a foreign buyer may own in the French Alps, Colorado and Switzerland, what it costs to hold and sell, and how to test a chalet before buying.
Buying
Structures, branded residences, off-market deals and residency
Off-Market Property: How Unlisted Sales Actually Work
Some prime homes change hands without a public listing. How that channel works, who operates it, and why buying with less public information calls for more diligence, not less.
Branded Residences Explained: Contracts, Costs, Rental Programmes and Resale
A branded residence attaches a hotel or fashion-house name, service and management to a private home. How the contracts work, what the charges buy, how rental programmes pay, and what limits your resale.
Golden Visa Real Estate in 2026: Which Routes Remain
Property-based residency has narrowed sharply: Spain closed, Portugal dropped real estate, Greece repriced. What still qualifies in 2026 — and the risks.
How to Buy Property Overseas: A Foreign Buyer's Guide
The core steps of an overseas purchase are the same almost everywhere. The traps are rarely the property — it is the taxes, title system and FX rate.
Buying Abroad: the Ownership Structure Decides More Than the Property
How a cross-border property is held affects tax, succession, privacy, resale and whether you can finance it at all. The questions to settle before you choose the house.
Golden Visas: What Residency Programmes Actually Buy
A residency-by-investment programme buys a right to reside. It does not automatically buy a tax outcome, a passport, or permanence — and the programmes themselves keep changing.
Branded Residence Management Agreements: What Buyers Should Check
The name on the building is a licence with an expiry date. Here is how a branded residence management agreement is actually structured, what its termination clauses do to your resale, and the questions that get answered before you exchange.
How Branded Residence Rental Programmes Work: Splits, Pools and Owner Use
Put your branded residence into the hotel rental pool and the operator lets it like a hotel room. What you get back depends on whether the split is gross or net, how units are allocated, and how many nights you kept for yourself.
Branded Residence Resale Restrictions: First Refusal, Approval and Fees
Branded schemes routinely control who you may sell to, on what notice, and sometimes at what price. Here are the restrictions that appear in the documents, what each one does to your exit, and how to price them before you buy.
Branded Residence Service Charges: Why They Are High and What They Buy
A branded scheme charges far more than an ordinary prime building, and the reason is staffing rather than greed. Here is what sits inside the service charge, what is billed on top, and how to check the rate before you buy.
How to Verify a Branded Residence Without Falling for the Brand
A name on a hoarding is a licence, not a guarantee, and the brand is almost never the builder. Here is how to establish what the affiliation actually is, how deep it goes, and how long it is contracted to last.
Spain's 100% Tax on Non-EU Buyers: Where It Stands and What Foreign Buyers Pay Today
Spain's proposed 100% surcharge on non-EU, non-resident buyers is still not law in October 2026. What the bill says, where it stands, and the taxes a foreign buyer actually pays today.
Tax & Structure
What you pay to buy, hold, let, sell and pass on
Private Banking for Real Estate Investors: How the Lending Works
What a private bank actually offers a property buyer — mortgages underwritten on wealth rather than salary, lombard credit, multi-currency loans — and the conditions that decide what that credit really costs.
Tax-Efficient Property Ownership: Personal Name, Company or Trust
How property held in your own name, through a company, in a trust or in a foundation is taxed — what recent rule changes closed, and the current figures from the official pages that publish them.
Property Tax: What You Are Actually Being Taxed On
Almost nobody is taxed on what they paid. They are taxed on an assessed value set by someone else, on a cycle they do not control — and that gap is where the surprises live.
The 183-Day Rule Is Not the Rule
Counting days is the part of tax residency everyone knows and the part that decides least. Two countries can both consider you resident, and neither has to care that you disagree.
Low-Tax Countries: What the Headline Rate Hides
A zero income tax rate tells you about one tax. The total cost of living somewhere is the sum of every charge, and the list of charges is longer in the places that advertise the zero.
How Private Is Property Ownership, Really?
In much of the world, who owns what is a matter of public record and always has been. What is actually private, what is searchable by anyone, and what the transparency registers changed.
Stamp Duty and Transfer Taxes: The Tax You Pay Just for Buying
Transfer taxes are charged on the transaction itself, due at completion, and rarely financeable. They are also the cost most often left out of the budget until it is too late to plan around.
Will I Pay Capital Gains on the Sale of My Overseas Home?
Usually yes — main-residence relief rarely travels to a second property, and an overseas one adds a second country with its own claim. The mechanics that decide the bill, with no rate quoted because rates change.
Inheritance Tax on Property Abroad: The Bill Your Heirs Inherit
Succession tax on foreign property is due where the property sits, often quickly, and usually in cash. An illiquid asset and a short deadline is how families end up selling in a hurry.
Letting It Out: Tax on Rental Income From a Home Abroad
Rental income is taxed where the property sits, usually reported locally, and often taxed again where you live. The gross yield in the brochure is not the number that reaches you.
Taxed Twice on the Same Money? Read the Treaty
When two countries both tax the same income, a treaty decides which one wins and what relief you get. It is the document that governs cross-border ownership, and almost nobody reads it.
The UK Mansion Tax Explained: How the High Value Council Tax Surcharge Will Work
From April 2028, owners of English homes worth £2 million or more face an annual surcharge of £2,500 to £7,500 on top of council tax. The bands, who pays, deferral, exemptions and how to challenge a band.
Owning
Running costs, staff and keeping a large house well
The Purchase Price Is the Cheap Part
Part 1 of 3. Trophy property is bought on the headline figure and owned on the annual one. What actually recurs, and why the ratio surprises first-time buyers at this level.
The Cost of Staffing a Trophy Estate
Past a certain scale a house becomes an operation with a payroll. The roles that appear whether you plan for them or not, why the wage is the smaller half of the cost, and the systems that must never fail.
What Carrying Cost Does to the Return You Think You Are Making
Part 3 of 3. Headline appreciation figures are gross. Once holding costs and transaction friction are subtracted, trophy property behaves very differently from how it is marketed.
Why Trophy Properties Sit Unsold for Years
Listings at the very top can run for years without a transaction. The four reasons are structural, not cosmetic — and three of them are decided before the property is ever listed.
A Low-Maintenance Property Beats a Cheap One
Purchase price is paid once and negotiated hard. Running cost is paid every year and negotiated never — which makes it the number that decides what you can actually afford.
How to Winterize a Second Home: Heat, Water and Insurance Before You Lock Up
An empty house fails in winter through water. The three decisions that prevent it, heat or drain-down, monitoring, and your insurer's unoccupancy terms, and a checklist for closing up and reopening.
House & Garden
Interiors, gardens and the technology that makes a house work
Smart Home Technology for Large Homes: What Is Worth Wiring In
Smart-home technology earns its place in a large home when it does three jobs well: security, resilience and lighting. Most of the rest is optional.
Luxury Home Upgrades That Feel Expensive, Without a Renovation
A handful of considered changes to light, touch points, textiles and edges read as high-end more than a full remodel does. Here is where to spend first.
Outdoor Living, Done Properly: A Garden and Terrace Guide
Furniture, materials, lighting and planting choices that turn a garden or balcony into the best room of the house, and the maintenance question that decides all of them.
Living
Chalets, islands, yachts, aviation and collecting
Fractional Ownership vs Jet Card vs Charter: Which Is Right for Investors?
Private aviation is sold on aircraft and bought on arithmetic. The four models compared on the only thing that decides between them — your genuine annual hours, and how many of your critical dates land on a peak day.
What Does a Superyacht Cost to Own Per Year?
The widely quoted percentage-of-price rule is a rule of thumb, not published data. What an annual superyacht budget is made of, why almost every line is fixed against use, and the arithmetic that decides ownership against charter.
Classic Cars as Alternative Investments: How the Market Works
How the collector-car market actually works as an alternative asset: what the indices measure and miss, where cars are bought and sold, and why provenance is worth more than the metal.